During my years working for a beloved charity, one of the jobs concerned
working with unhappy sponsors. I considered that responsibility to be the
task of re-gruntling the disgruntled. It required a special type of
personality, a person gifted with a great amount of ruth (it always bothered
me that we use the word mercy as well as merciless, but we note ruth only in
its absence).

Many years ago I read a humorous article entitled "The Mystery of the Vanished
Positive" which questioned why the form of words like 'inane' 'unruly' and
'disgusting' appeared to be negative, but that there were no corresponding
positive forms. Also why something can be described as 'spick and span' but
never just 'spick' or 'span'! The article ended with a poem entitled A Very
Descript Man parts of which have stuck in my mind over the years. This
week's theme prompted me to look for it and read it again in its entirety.

Oh, come on, Tacoma ain't that great, but neither was 1988 (Reagan??).
So, the third sentence, "It wasn't 1988 yet, and I was driving home from
Tacoma" can't be considered negative.

From: Mike Tarasyuk (lizkinpapa yahoo.com)
Subject: Oulipo

I did not know about Oulipo, but my favorite contemporary Russian author,
Sergei Dovlatov (some of his books are
translated into English -- The New Yorker published some of his stories), is
known for not using words that start with the same letter within the same
sentence in most, if not all of his books. Just like rhyming in poetry,
such self-constraints indeed result in unusual word choices and lively prose.

About Oulipo: it's short for "Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle".
"Un ouvroir" is a place where women met to do needlework in the old times
but it suggests also more generally a place where people work together,
sharing projects and techniques. Ouvroir is a deliciously old-fashioned
word which, associated with "littérature", suggests that people can meet
and produce literary work as women did embroidery or lace in the past:
chatting happily and having fun, I suppose. The word "Potentielle" refers
to something possible in the future or about to happen.

In France, "Des papous dans la tête" is a cult radio programme on France
Culture radio channel every Sunday at noon (lasts about two hours) where
people belonging to Oulipo or working in its spirit practise lipogram and
all sorts of varied (and often hilarious) literary games, sometimes very
refined and very poetical. Texts are usually intentionally far-fetched or
a bit abstruse and exchanges between participants so much fun, always.
"Des papous dans la tête" is really a cult programme for people who love
French literature and word games.